Baytown residents say no to barge terminal

Published 7:00 pm, Wednesday, September 12, 2007

TIMELINE

In early 1980, 80 acres of land was purchased by Johnnie Jennings next to Cedar Bayou. A boat slip permit was applied for by Jennings and granted by the Army Corps of Engineers on July 15, 1980 authorizing dredging depths of the basin to six-feet.

On March 3, 1982, an amendment to the permit was made authorizing dredging to 10.5 feet.

A second amendment to the permit was filed on Februar, 2005 seeking an extension of time to complete the permit activities until December 31, 2009. The extension also allowed for mechanicl excavation from 10.5 feet to 13 feet.

In mid-2006, the City of Baytown City Council discovered the intentions of Jennings was not for a boat slip, but rather a barge terminal.

A letter was written to Congressman Ted Poe on March 22, 2007 soliciting his help in protecting the safety and quality of life for the Cedar Bayou Stream area.

A public meeting was held on Sept. 11, 2007 by Friends of Cedar Bayou.

By Brenda Johnson

It's going to be a pain, that's what it's going to be," said Theo Wilson, who lives on the other side of Cedar Bayou where a proposed barge terminal is to be built. "It's right across from the boat dock at Roseland Park. It'll make recreation on Cedar Bayou unsafe while people are battling barges."

For neighbors in the Roseland community in the southeast area of Baytown, their peaceful existence is about to take on a new timbre. The quiet evenings of watching sunsets off Cedar Bayou and the gaze of wetland wildlife may be interrupted by a proposed barge terminal that is set to be built in the near future.

"The backwash from the tugboats will undermine and destroy the bulkheads. The truck traffic coming up through here is going to increase ten-fold. Bright lights through the night and noise from containers being banged around will be heard around the clock. The quality of life right here is going to be pathetic," said a frustrated Theo Wilson.

"It's hard to say what people will think about it until they see it," said Dan Derrick, a Baytown resident since 1989. "Once it's there, we might not like it, but then it'll be too late to do anything about it."

That is precisely the reason residents are feeling a sense of urgency, why Baytown City Council voted to spend as much as $50,000 for legal advice on the city's options to oppose Cedar Bayou's terminal projects, hiring attorney Bob Renbarger, of Fritz, Byrne, Head & Harrison, LLP.

Renbarger was the legal counsel responsible for keeping a 796-acre industrial waste dump out of Beach City, and why District 6 Councilman Sammy Mahan is getting involved in the issue.

"The City of Baytown has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building the bulkhead at Roseland Park," he said. "That park is one of the prettiest spots in Baytown.

That barge terminal will ruin it. I know we're not going to stop barges from coming down Cedar Bayou. I just don't want a barge terminal across from Roseland Park. Once that

terminal is across from the park, it'll be devastating. It's like cutting down a tree. Once it's gone, it's gone; and if we don't stop that barge terminal, Roseland Park will be gone, too."

Mahan said that at least 130 people attended the Friends of Cedar Park meeting Tuesday night. "It was a great meeting. We had lots of support," he said.

According to city documents, Baytown resident Johnnie Jennings applied for a city permit to put a boat slip on the property in the early 1980s. A barge terminal was added in a later amendment, and things are beginning to get worrisome as plans progress.

City officials did not know about plans for a barge terminal until a notice of a permit extension was received in 2006. Filing a letter of objection, they met with representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in March. Their concerns were taken under consideration, but later they received a letter stating that the permit was valid.

Laredo attorney Alison Haynes met with Baytown City Council in April to discuss the project. She explained that Richardson WaterRail proposes that the terminal will be a water transport service moving cargo containers from the Port of Houston Authority's container terminals to Cedar Crossing Business Park east of Baytown.

One justification was that water transportation takes trucks off the road which reduces air pollution and road wear. The reason they've chosen that section across from the park is because it is wide and has a U-shaped inlet.

She said that it will include a facility that will maintain and repair the barges.

She said, "When the barges are being offloaded, they will be parked in that inlet. There's no reason for them to cross the center point of the bayou. They should not be disrupting the flow of any traffic whatsoever."

Assuring the council that the developers are eager to be good neighbors, she said, "We don't want to be something that people complain about. We want to set the standard for other development on the bayou."

She also detailed plans to have the terminal landscaped with trees and plants on all four sides to create a visual screen and a noise buffer.

In response to that, Robert Fabian, resident of Baytown and Highlands for 15 years, countered, "In the beginning, they'll tell you all kinds of stuff that's good about it; that we're going to do this and that, but as times goes on, they'll be getting away with a lot more stuff than they're telling us now."

"Folks, this particular barge terminal is just the tip of the iceberg," Baytown Mayor Stephen DonCarlos said at the meeting. "We as a city are doing everything we can think of to try to get a handle on the situation. We do not want it to become another Houston Ship Channel."

He explained that a possible help could be to annex the land that Richardson WaterRail plans to build on and said that city council plans to propose setting public hearings for the annexation of a 500-foot strip of land beginning east of Highway 146 and the mean high tide line of Cedar Bayou Stream's eastern bank to the point where the tide line intersects with Highway 99.

"The annexation cannot stop construction of this particular barge terminal, but it will require Richardson WaterRail to operate under city ordinances," he said.

Wilson contends that from a tax perspective, he doesn't know why the city would allow it. "All the property values are going to go down. All the tax revenues are going to go away. I don't think they need to be coming farther up the Bayou on this small waterway. There's already an industrial district up there."

Mahan said that Jennings owns hundreds of acres all along Cedar Bayou. It was his understanding that Jennings had recently bought Crawley's Fish Camp where Tabb's Bay and Cedar Bayou connect with plans to build a barge terminal there. "And if that's the case, then I say, let him go ahead, but please don't destroy the one good recreational property we still have left in Baytown," he said.

"I don't want it," agreed Fabian. "I don't think anybody does."

Mahan summed it up in a few words. "The one thing that could stop this whole bad situation from becoming a nightmare is the public," he said. "The public opinion. If people here have never been involved in public issues before, this is the one time that they need to start."

Those wishing to helping block the barge terminal are asked to visit www.baytown.org or contact Mahan at 281-932-4969.